---
title: Does Heurio Automatically Analyze My Page?
description: "Heurio doesn't run an automatic scan on page load today — every heurio is created manually or through a locked heuristic guideline. Here's how the two workflows compare, and what's coming."
canonical: "https://www.heurio.co/docs/how-to-use-heurio/does-heurio-automatically-analyze"
section: How to use Heurio
updated: 2026-07-27
---
# Does Heurio Automatically Analyze My Page?

> **Short answer:** Heurio doesn't scan a page for you automatically today. You (or your teammates) pin each heurio manually. If you want a structured, guideline-by-guideline pass instead of ad-hoc clicking, see [Heuristic Evaluation](/docs/how-to-use-heurio/heuristic-evaluation) — that's the closest thing to "automatic" that exists right now.

Not yet — every heurio today is created by a person, either one click at a time or by working through a locked heuristic guideline. Here's exactly how manual review works right now, and what's changing.

## How review works today

- **Manual, one at a time.** You click an element on a live website, and Heurio opens a comment form for a note, suggestion, [severity](/docs/comment-heurio-details/severities), and optional [heuristic reference](/docs/comment-heurio-details/guidelines-heuristics).
- **Guided, not automated.** In [Heuristic Evaluation](/docs/how-to-use-heurio/heuristic-evaluation), you can lock a rule (e.g. "Visibility of System Status") so it's pre-filled on every new heurio — this speeds up a structured pass through a guideline, but you still have to find and click each issue yourself.
- **No page-load scan.** Opening the extension on a page does not trigger any analysis. Nothing happens until you click.

## Why this trips people up

If you came to Heurio expecting it to open a site and hand you a list of usability problems, that's a fair expectation to have — and it's not what the current version does. Heurio today is closer to a structured commenting tool than an automated auditor. We hear this often enough that we're building toward it directly — see [Heurio for vibe coding](/vibe-coding) for where AI-assisted analysis is headed.

## Get the fastest manual workflow today

Until automated analysis ships, the fastest way to approximate it is:

1. Open the Book of Guidelines and pick a built-in guideline — [Nielsen's 10 Usability Heuristics](/nielsens-10-usability-heuristics) is the most common starting point. See [Heuristic Evaluation](/docs/how-to-use-heurio/heuristic-evaluation) for the full walkthrough.
2. Lock the first rule and work through the page top to bottom, pinning a heurio on every violation.
3. Switch to the next rule and repeat.

This won't find issues for you, but it guarantees you don't miss a category the way ad-hoc clicking sometimes does.

## Frequently asked questions

### Will Heurio ever analyze a page automatically?

Automated, AI-assisted analysis is actively in development. Follow the vibe coding pages at /vibe-coding and the Heurio blog for updates on AI heuristic analysis as it rolls out.

### What's the closest thing to automatic today?

Locking a rule in the Book of Guidelines and working through a guideline systematically — see Heuristic Evaluation. It structures your manual review but doesn't find issues on its own.

### Does the extension do anything when I open it on a new page?

No. Opening the extension just makes the comment tool available. No data is collected and no analysis runs until you click an element.

### Can my whole team split up a manual review to go faster?

Yes. Heuristic evaluations are typically more reliable with 3–5 reviewers, and splitting the rules of a guideline across teammates is faster than one person covering the whole guideline alone.